Figure out your ideal career in 2 months (it took me 10 years)
“You will never win if you never begin.”
I am a huge advocate for not being stuck in a job you hate, so devoting this issue to “How to find your ideal career”.
To have a joyful career, you need to find a job that you will actually like.
Now that’s not an easy task. It wasn't for me either.
I spent 10 years (age 16-26) coaxing myself for not being that kid who is sure about what to become in life.
Because I never was.
I was crushed under the many options I liked:
IAS Officer, Doctor, Engineer, Writer, Psychologist, Editor-in-Chief.
At age 27, I am finally content with what I do.
Now that I am wiser, I know why I didn’t have the clarity back then.
This line that I read recently sums it up perfectly:
“You believe that creating your best life is a matter of deciding what you want and then going after it, but in reality, you are psychologically incapable of being able to predict what will make you happy.”
The crux of this is:
➡️ If you like watching a movie, you know that, because you have watched a movie.
➡️ If you like analyzing data, you know that, because you have analyzed data.
➡️ If you like teaching, you know that, because you have taught before.
So, what does this teach us?
Experimentation is the key to a fulfilling career.
You need to step out of your comfort zone and try new things.
And, here, I’m not telling you to study coding for 2 years, become a coder and then take 1 year to figure if you like it or not.
I have a highly realistic 3 step framework - LIR which you can implement from today itself.
Let’s say you are confused and have 3 choices: Software Engineering, Social Media Marketing, Project Management. Here’s how you can apply the LIR framework:
Learning (time taken 1 month)
Coding: Learn C - the basic algorithms
Social Media Marketing: Learn copywriting
Project Management: Watch YT videos on what are the stages involved in a project
Implementation (time taken: 3 weeks)
Coding: Get some coding questions from the internet and solve those
Social Media Marketing: Imagine your fav 5 content creators have chosen you to write 2 scripts each for them. Write those.
Project Management: Go volunteer for an NGO and handle 2-3 events end-end.
Reflection (time taken: 1 week)
After taking the time to reflect, you'll likely discover a pattern emerging. Perhaps you found coding intellectually stimulating but too isolating, or maybe you realized you loved the creativity in social media marketing.
Remember there’s no shortcut and that’s the beauty of this process: you keep discovering yourself along the way!
Keep Blooming,
Bani Singh